Flaxen in the Springtime
by Carter Bishop
Summary: A young woman loses the one thing most precious to her and gains something special in return. With her Japanese heritage a cause for conflict in the small town, Setsuna must learn to balance MC life with running her nursery, all the while keeping a guarded eye on the family she tried to leave behind her in Japan. Jax/OC Mafia any one?


Flaxen in the Springtime

Prologue.

Stupid junky bitch.

That was the one thought that had stuck with Gemma Teller-Morrow from the moment she saw her only sons stupid ass wife on the floor in a pool of her own blood with the needle laying haplessly on the grime covered linoleum.

Speaking as a mother herself, Gemma couldn't comprehend how a woman could so deliberately sabotage the life growing inside her. Wendy Teller had never been the brightest bulb in the tanning bed but fuck. It wasn't that difficult an equation. And now here they were – Wendy comatose in a private room while Gemma watched over her new grandbaby.

The little boy was a miracle in his own right, what with a tear in his stomach from the crank his mother had forced into his veins and the hole in his heart from the Teller family flaw. A little trooper is what he was. Just thinking about the damage that junky whore had caused him had Gemma shaking with barely suppressed rage. As soon as she knew her grandbaby was out of immediate danger she would be talking to Unser about having the slut charged for grievous bodily harm and whatever else she could think to throw at her.

And if little Abel Teller didn't pull through…

She didn't want to think about it. But what would be more satisfying? Letting her biker husband and son carry out their own justice or let the law force her into a dank cell to rot for what Gemma would make sure was the rest of her miserable life?

But she didn't want to get ahead of herself. After all, little man was still fighting, still waving his tiny pink fists in a giant fuck you to both his junkie mother and the hand God had dealt him. If having a grandfather who was the national president of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club mother charter and a daddy who was VP wasn't enough to seal the infants fate, his attitude certainly would.

Before Gemma could smile indulgently, an alarm suddenly rang out from the NICU. Her eyes roved over every inch of the little boy checking for any signs of a change – any change at all. Surely that alarm wasn't for him.

She swallowed deeply and nearly choked as two nurses and a doctor rushed to Abel's crib. She felt a mild stab of guilt when she breathed a sigh of relief that had her shoulders sagging heavily when they continued on to the crib closest to Abel. She hadn't given any thought to any of the other infants also in the unit, too caught up showing enough concern to make up for own stupid sons absence to worry about anyone else.

Within seconds they were wheeling the incubator out of the smaller room and down the hall to where she assumed was the operating theatre. Once again, a sterile calm settled over the unit and Gemma took the opportunity to try Jax's cell again.

Straight to voicemail. She rolled her eyes.

"Jax, hurry up and deal with your shit. Little man is fighting and _he_ deserves better than this," she griped after the recorded voice of her son laughingly told the caller he might get back to them if he felt like it. She sighed again. She felt like she had sighed a thousand times in the last twelve hours. "Please, baby. Do it for Abel."

She hung up and quickly dialed another number but before she could even put the device to her ear the door opened and a meek blonde woman shuffled in. she had her arms folded lightly on top of her stomach and looked as if she didn't have the strength to move any faster.

"Gem?"

The sound of her husband shocked her back to attention.

"Oh, hey baby. Seen my dead beat son recently?"

She heard Clay sigh on the other end of the line. At this rate both of them would age beyond their years in the next 24 hours. "I'm lookin' at him. Seems he's made nice with a bottle of Jack and three of Bobby's special muffins. He trashed Abel's nursery, by the way. We got him sober and just kicked his ass to the hospital. Should be there any minute now."

"Weed and booze, typical," she grumbled under her breath. The new woman was now almost to where she was standing. Gemma didn't think she would be a threat – hell the woman could hardly walk at a proper speed – but that didn't stop her from being wary of all outsiders. Especially some nobody that she had never seen before.

Gemma prided herself on being able to recognize every one in the town, if only for security reasons but it didn't matter. This woman was a stranger, an unknown stranger at that.

They said their goodbyes and Gemma tucked her cell back into her black Gucci handbag. She raised her eyebrows in shock when the woman looked up into the window; her own eyes widened and frantically scoured the room in front of them.

The blonde woman was Asian. She couldn't tell the difference between all the different nationalities but it had never really mattered. Asian was Asian as far as she was concerned. It was only when the woman's panicked eyes looked straight up into hers that she realized just how young the woman really was.

She could be no more than her very early twenties. But then again, didn't Asians age well?

"Have any babies been removed from here? Has anything happened? Anything at all?"

Gemma almost took a step back, she was certain the woman was two seconds from gripping her shirt and begging for her answers.

"Yeah," she tilted her chin slightly upwards and looked at her from the corner of her eye, her body still facing her grandbaby's incubator. "Few minutes ago. Alarm went off. Kid got wheeled out, took him down the hall."

The woman visibly paled and her breathing seemed to stop completely. "Was it definitely a he? You're sure it was a boy?"

Gemma frowned and crossed her arms this time. Who was she to demand answers from her? She narrowed her eyes further when she watched two small hands reflexively cradle an only slightly swollen stomach. Gemma's arms dropped to her side as more dots began to connect. This was the kid's mother. She swallowed tightly and looked back to Abel, once again feeling the guilt tinged relief that she was still able to see the kid for herself, know that he was currently okay as long as she could see him.

"Yeah," Gemma nodded as she recalled one tiny detail. "He had a dark blue beanie on."

* F * IT * S *

Jax could honestly say he had never seen the phrase 'crumbled to the floor' play out so literally. It was as if the petite woman was made of crepe paper and someone had let her go. She seemed to curl into herself until she was leaning on her hands and knees right there in the corridor. He watched silently as his mother followed just as closely, a hand placed to the woman's back and another waving frantically at… him.

He blinked once, twice, before her words finally registered in his still slightly foggy brain.

"Jax! Get an orderly! _Now_," she seemed to growl at the still motionless Son. It was as if a switch at the base of his brain finally managed to flip over. One moment he was watching as an unknown woman dry retched and sobbed while his normally stoic mother frantically tried to help her and the next he was back through the door he just come through. He may as well have been running as he came to an abrupt halt at the main desk to the NICU.

There fear in his eyes was enough for the receptionist to slam a button next to her computer and two nurses to appear from almost thin air. Without explaining – he didn't even really understand what the problem was – he turned on his heel and raced back to his mother and the blonde stranger.

Both nurses seemed to both cringe when they saw the woman on the floor. Gemma shuffled out of the way on her knees before picking up her handbag and walking as if in a daze to Jax. She didn't know why she had reacted so acutely to the girl but something about her pulled at her maternal instincts. Whether it was because she was a new mother who most likely was loosing her child as they spoke or a moment of weakness as she minded her sick grandchild, she felt a sense of camaraderie that she honestly couldn't explain.

The nurses managed to get her back to her feet and helped her sit down in one of the overstuffed armchairs against the back wall. The older of the two, a normally stern looking matron with greying brown hair and a waistline three times the size it had been when she was twenty, gently sat down next to the now silent woman. Thin rivulets of tears ran from her fear widened eyes as she watched the older nurse placed both her hands atop her own as the second, younger nurse dashed down the hall the stranger had explained her baby had been wheeled down not twenty minutes earlier.

"We have no news, dear," the stern looking woman said in an almost motherly voice. "Suna, look at me." For once both Gemma and Jax felt like the outsiders as they watched the nurse gently lift this _Suna's_ chin to face her properly. "We have no news. But no news is good news, yes?"

Jax had to wonder how many times this Suna had been told that and by how many different people? From the way she pulled away from the nurse just a fraction as she spoke the words, he would say more frequently than he would have been able to tolerate.

Before she could answer, the doors at the other end of the room hummed as they mechanically swung open simultaneously. The younger of the two nurses returned with a middle-aged doctor in scrubs and a lab coat with a brunette in scrubs behind him.

As soon as the blonde looked up she knew the answer. Her little boy hadn't made it.

Jax watched with fascination as she did the complete opposite of what he had been expecting. She merely stood up, bowed slightly with only a small wince as she clutched her stomach and then began slowly walking down the hallway the doctor had just come from. There were no hysterics. No sobbing, screaming, fighting, nothing. She didn't even fall into the bitter trap of denial, didn't reassure herself that everything was fine and that they had merely made a mistake. She just simply accepted what the doctor hadn't even needed to say.

Gemma was frozen. Her eyes darted between her son and the remaining doctor, waiting for all hell to break loose. She couldn't shake the small satisfaction she felt as she saw the new doctor huff slightly as her son stared after who she now knew was Suna. Such an unusual name. It seemed fitting for the unusual woman.

Despite the circumstances, Gemma had felt warmth when she comforted the girl. Something she had never felt in relation to the other woman now in front of them, still glaring between her son and Suna. She had over heard a nurse mentioning how well a Dr. Knowles had done for her first time assisting in surgery but had brushed it off.

It was only as the two nurses and doctor followed her deeper down the corridor that Jax realized the brunette in the pale pink scrubs had stayed behind. He finally looked over to the previously faceless medic that his whole world stopped spinning.

Tara was back?

A/N: I know its getting a little repetitive – start a story, start a new one, continue that story, start another one… However, this one has been playing in my head for a little while.

I think it would be super interesting to explore the idea of racism from a different vantage point but once again there isn't exactly a lot of fore planning going into this so bear with me?

Please, please, please leave me your reviews! They really are what give me the encouragement to keep writing. People may view this story but only a review will explicitly tell me what you are thinking and as a lot of my regulars know – I absolutely love your input!

Seriously, character ideas, plot ideas, anything! I am more than happy to incorporate your ideas and concepts to make this a little more audience involved.

Have a lovely weekend and tell me what you think!

To continue or not?

~ Carter Bishop


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